The Lazarus Curse

by Darren Craske

  ‘I see that you may take more effort than I first thought,’ said Li-Dao, wiping blood from her lip. She reached to her belt and removed her daggers from their scabbards. ‘Perhaps we should make this a bit more interesting.’

  Although Ruby could not understand the words, she translated the actions just fine.

  ‘Like that, is it?’ she said. ‘Scared you were going to lose, so now you’re stacking the odds in your favour?’

  Li-Dao then did something unexpected – yet not necessarily unwelcome – and she threw one of her daggers onto the ground by Ruby’s feet, silently inviting her to pick it up. Ruby did just that, feeling her confidence grow with the knife in her hand. Not only was it the tool of her trade, it was almost like an old friend. She never felt more alive than when she had knife in her hand. She carved an arc in the air, almost finding Li-Dao’s cheek, but the bodyguard ducked, slashing with her own dagger and catching Ruby’s forearm. A thin seam of blood seeped through Ruby’s sleeve, but she ignored the pain.

  ‘Now you’ve done it,’ she hissed. ‘I loved this blouse.’

  As Li-Dao took a step closer, Ruby slammed her elbow into the bodyguard’s jaw. Unfazed, Li-Dao struck the butt of her dagger across Ruby’s temple. Dazed, unable to focus on the multiple versions of Li-Dao in front of her, Ruby stumbled backwards.

  Li-Dao took her dagger and sliced at the air either side of her, her blade moving in a golden blur. The dance was meant to intimidate her opponent.

  It did not, for she had seen better.

  ‘Not bad,’ said Ruby. ‘But not as good as me.’

  Proving her point, Ruby threw her dagger into the air, caught it on the tip of her finger and then spun it around. It danced across the back of her hand as if it were alive. Ruby ended the show by forming a fist, and the knife hopped up into her hand again.

  ‘A word of advice, sweetie: if there’s one thing you never want to let me near, it’s a knife.’ Ruby lunged, but Li-Dao was way ahead of her.

  Their blades spat sparks as they connected. As Li-Dao flicked her wrist, Ruby felt her grip on the dagger cease – it flew out of her hand and landed in the dirt out of reach. Li-Dao laughed, coming again with her knife towards Ruby’s chest. Ruby ducked and swept Li-Dao’s legs out from under her. Li-Dao slammed onto her back, tumbling awkwardly into Ruby, and in the clash her dagger fell from her grasp.

  Now neither woman was armed.

  Their rage energised to a frenzy, they continued the fight with fingernails, elbows, fists and feet. Any weapon at hand. Tussling on the ground and clouded by dust, they were blinded. Gaining an upper hand as Ruby tried to clear her sight, Li-Dao snatched hold of Ruby’s throat and squeezed. As the tears flooded her eyes, Ruby suddenly caught sight of something through the dust cloud.

  The knife was just out of reach.

  Clawing at the ground, Ruby tried to drag herself closer towards it. Li-Dao squeezed harder – and then she saw what Ruby was looking at.

  Ruby winked. ‘Race you for it.’

  Both women leapt for the knife at the same time. Colliding, their hands grasped at each other’s clothing as they tried to drag the other away from the weapon. Ruby got there first. She smashed her elbow into Li-Dao’s face, grabbed the knife and skipped lithely to her feet.

  ‘Nice try, love… ’ she panted, ‘… but this fight is finished.’

  And how right she was.

  From the entrance to the mine and from the road to the east, brigade after brigade of armoured troops appeared. Ruby’s stomach turned just like the tables had.

  Chapter XXI

  The Strength of Numbers

  The outlaws were outnumbered, but they had confusion on their side. Makoi’s band leapt from one fray into another, swapping dance partners every minute. Slashing out at anything in armour, they were just about holding their ground. Even so, for every Makoi there were at least five of Cho-zen Li’s soldiers and the battle was only ever going to end one way. As the true Makoi brought the edge of an axe into the chest of his enemy, shattering the iron scales of the armour, he knew exactly what that end would be.

  ‘Your men need to retreat!’ called a voice nearby.

  Makoi scanned the clearing and saw a tall man approaching his position carrying a long-bladed sword. Makoi tensed his grip on his axe. ‘What do you mean retreat?’

  ‘Continuing this fight is a pointless endeavour,’ said Cornelius Quaint. ‘Surely you must see that!’

  ‘I think you underestimate their chances, friend,’ said Makoi.

  ‘I think you overestimate yours,’ said Quaint, ‘… friend.’

  ‘We need to press our advantage! We need to get into the mine and free everyone and then go for Cho-zen Li himself. We do not retreat until the battle is over!’

  ‘The battle is over, Makoi, take a look around!’

  Makoi did so.

  His men were fighting with heart… but there were just too many enemies. Granted, the soldiers were disorganised and disoriented, but all it took was one of them to galvanise the rest and the end would come swiftly. Even if the battle was not truly over, its outcome was not up for debate.

  ‘You need to pull your men back into the cover of the trees before they all get slaughtered,’ advised Quaint. ‘I presume you have a safe haven nearby?’

  ‘Several,’ replied Makoi. ‘But my main camp is six miles north.’

  ‘Then let’s get to it, we don’t have all night!’ snapped Quaint. ‘You gather your folks and I’ll gather mine!’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Makoi. ‘Although it looks like one of your folk is beyond our help.’ He gestured towards the mine’s entrance.

  Ruby was surrounded by Cho-zen Li’s forces, and they grabbed her wrists and forced her amongst the group of recaptured slaves. With the soldiers massed around the mine entrance, there was no hope of freeing her.

  Quaint went to set off towards her, but Makoi grabbed his arm. ‘No! They are too close to the mine! If you go charging in there now you will only give those guards another target. Right now your friend is alive, that is what matters!’

  ‘But what of Prometheus? And Butter and Yin?’ asked Quaint, darting his eyes left and right. ‘I don’t see them anywhere!’

  ‘Boss, over here,’ called Butter’s voice, with Yin and Prometheus beside him.

  ‘I was fighting that big bald one,’ said Prometheus, panting heavily – the marks of his fight evident on his face. ‘I turned around and saw Ruby and that girl scrapping… then all the soldiers turned up! I picked up Yin and Butter and ran like crazy. Only thing I could do. Didn’t seem much sense all of us getting caught.’

  ‘Your friend will be safe, relatively speaking,’ said Makoi to Quaint. ‘Cho-zen Li will not harm those who may be useful to him, and Li-Dao will no doubt claim credit for her capture.’

  ‘Who is this Li-Dao?’ Quaint demanded,

  ‘Cho-zen Li’s personal bodyguard. Quite, quite deadly,’ Makoi replied.

  ‘Bodyguard?’ gasped Quaint. ‘What sort of warlord gets a girl to do his dirty work?’

  ‘She is no girl… she is a demon in human form! Cho-zen Li keeps her on a tight leash so as not to muddy his own hands.’

  ‘Charming,’ said Quaint.

  Makoi looked around as several of his men joined him. ‘How many of our band still live, my brother?’

  ‘Fifteen, Makoi, although we have some walking-wounded,’ answered the outlaw, as he pulled the golden mask away from his face and let it fall to the ground. Soon, his cohorts did the same, leaving only the true Makoi masked.

  ‘We lost eleven?’ said Makoi. ‘Take to the cover of the trees and avoid the roads. We will head to our camp and tend to our wounded. But watch your backs and tread carefully. Cho-zen Li’s men might try to track us.’

  The black-clad outlaw nodded obediently, and stepped back slowly into the shadows of the trees at Makoi’s command.

  The small group fell silent.

  ‘I am sorry for your losses, Makoi,’ Quaint said, ‘but you s
eem to know Cho-zen Li better than most, and right now it’s knowledge that I need. I can’t just thunder in there, his palace will no doubt be guarded to the hilt. I need your help.’

  Makoi shook his head. ‘Help? I am fighting a war that is both never-ending and extremely one-sided. I have concerns of my own to worry about.’

  ‘I’m not asking for the world, Makoi… just help!’ pleaded Quaint – his anguish matched by the looks on Yin, Butter and Prometheus’s faces. ‘Maybe we can pool our resources. There might just be a way to form a concentrated attack. With Cho-zen Li’s forces rattled, another direct assault is the last thing he’d expect!’

  Makoi snorted. ‘And what resources do you bring? I count only four of you.’ He glanced up at Prometheus. ‘Well, perhaps four and a half.’ Makoi exhaled, his taut breath echoing inside his mask. ‘Very well… you and your friends may return with me back to our camp. I will confer with my oracle, but do not raise your hopes. After the losses we have sustained this night, I doubt we will be in any shape for another fight anytime soon… and your friend may not have that long.’

  Chapter XXII

  The Mine

  Ruby’s strength had waned dramatically since the adrenalin from her fight had long since worn off. Darkness was all around her. Amongst the number of slaves that had been recaptured, she lifted her beleaguered eyes and surveyed her surroundings. Deep underneath Q’in Mountain, the silver mine was a vast network of tunnels and caves, and everywhere she looked were people chained up. Chained to the ground, chained to the walls, chained to each other, the slaves worked tirelessly with hand tools at the rocks; banging, scraping, bashing and carving. Everyone had the same expression on their emaciated faces. They were resigned to their fate. All hope quashed by fear, all light banished by the dark, and any chance of escape far from their minds.

  As Ruby was led through the tunnels, she forced her eyes to adjust to the low light from the flickering torches. Along the dusty path, armoured soldiers stood to attention, their helmets obscuring their faces. Ruby could not see their eyes, but she knew they were watching, and every now and then, one of the slaves on Ruby’s periphery would slow their work rate, or down their tools for a respite, and the guards would lash out furiously with their whips. However many of Cho-zen Li’s prisoners had been lined up outside in the clearing earlier, there were ten times that number secreted deeper within the mine.

  ‘Ungrateful curs!’ yelled Wuan, hobbling into view supported by a makeshift crutch. ‘The Master treats you well, does he not? He feeds you, he keeps you safe, and he gives you a bed to sleep at night. What more do you need?’

  ‘Safe?’ sneered a Chinese woman to Ruby’s right. ‘Cho-zen Li keeps us locked up like animals. We would be safer in a cage of tigers!’

  ‘Who said that?’ Wuan demanded, his eyes twitching to and fro.

  ‘Someone has to speak out!’ said the woman. ‘You sound as if we should be thankful to that obese monstrosity for keeping us in chains!’

  A few of the other slaves tried to hush the woman, but it was too late, the damage had been done. Wuan walked over to her awkwardly.

  ‘You speak ill of the Master, knowing full well that I will rip your tongue out?’ snarled Wuan. ‘Why would you do such a thing?’

  The woman spat on the ground. ‘Cho-zen Li is no master of mine!’

  It was to be the last thing she ever said.

  Wuan thrust a dagger deep inside her, paring her stomach from her navel up to her breasts. She collapsed as her innards tumbled free into the dirt.

  ‘Does anyone else have something to say?’ Wuan’s question was greeted by silence. ‘Guards, unchain this prisoner. The rats will feast well on her corpse. The rest of you listen to me… tonight you will sleep, tomorrow you will work. That is your life until my master wishes it ended. The sooner you understand that, the longer you will continue to have that life – or any life at all.’

  ‘Wait!’ called a voice from behind the pack, and all eyes lifted from the dirt to see Li-Dao, striding down the tunnel. ‘Where is she? Where is the outlander?’

  Guessing correctly that Li-Dao was referring to her, Ruby tried to shrink into the darkness, but unlike the rest of the slaves, her clean face stood out like a fox in a henhouse.

  ‘Ah, here she is,’ Li-Dao said, as she spied Ruby within the crowd. ‘Wuan, see to it that this one is locked up in solitary confinement. I do not want the others’ stench to taint her until the Master has taken his pleasure from her body.’

  Ruby was pushed by the tip of a sword for the duration of the short journey up winding stone steps, hand-carved from the mountain itself, before she reached her jail cell. The guard at her back motioned for her to enter, and such was the look of fury in his eyes, that she had no choice but to do as she was instructed. Her cell’s iron-barred door slammed shut and the clang of metal against metal reverberated around the confined area. Ruby shivered at the sound. All she could do was grit her teeth and sit it out. Someone would come for her soon, she prayed, she hoped. Mr Q would come. She had absolute and unwavering faith in him, in that respect much like her Inuit colleague Butter. She knew that come hell or high water, Cornelius Quaint would get her out of that place. Until then, sleep was top of her list of things to do. The fight with Li-Dao had drained all her energy, and no matter the stink of urine and faeces in the cell, at that moment she could fall asleep standing up.

  She sat herself down on the bench chained to the wall, feeling the pulsing echo of the battle’s aftermath ebb from her body. She rested her head into the crook of her arm and her mind slowed to a crawl. She was asleep within moments, quite oblivious to a slim young man that stepped out from the shadows and made his way closer to her cell. As she slept, his face masked by the darkness, he placed his hand through the bars of the cell and stroked her hair.

  ‘Be strong, Ruby. I will get you out soon,’ the young man said. ‘I promise’.

  Chapter XXIII

  The Real Makoi

  Makoi’s camp was a subdued affair. The small fires dotted around were dying out, and night was in full pitch. As the leader of the gang of outlaws strolled around, his mind was beset with as much remorse as he could possibly feel. Behind his mask, he looked across the faces of his men as they stowed away their equipment and entered their deer-hide-covered tents. Twenty-five of them had set out, yet only fifteen had returned, and the guilt burned Makoi’s heart with every breath. Just the day before he had lost men to Li-Dao’s blade, and now the numbers were dwindling even more. Makoi wondered what would it take to defeat Cho-zen Li… and if he could accomplish it before he ran out of men. So lost in his thoughts was he, that he almost tripped over Cornelius Quaint, sat alone by the flowing stream. The conjuror was not of a mind to sleep. As his mind replayed the day’s events, he picked up a stone and threw it into the stream, watching it sink as quickly as his mood.

  ‘If you only knew how many times I have sat where you sit and done the very same thing, my friend,’ said Makoi, as he plonked himself down next to Quaint. ‘There used to be a pile of rocks six feet high before I came here.’ He laughed, raising a spark of relief from Quaint too. ‘So, what keeps you awake?’

  ‘I’m just thinking,’ replied Quaint.

  ‘About?’

  ‘I’ll give you one guess,’ said the conjuror.

  Makoi nodded. ‘Cho-zen Li is like a waking dream, nagging at the back of your mind. Fighting him becomes all-consuming after a time. Believe me, I know.’

  ‘But we weren’t fighting Cho-zen Li, were we?’ said Quaint. ‘We didn’t even get close. His soldiers saw to that. I had no idea he had such a formidable army at his disposal.’

  ‘They do not call him “warlord” for nothing,’ replied Makoi. ‘Even if we were to get past his soldiers, the palace itself is highly fortified. It seems that the only way to get inside is to be taken there. You could always consider that.’

  ‘You mean surrender?’ asked Quaint. ‘I’m about as likely to do that as you are.’

&n
bsp; ‘That may well be true, but it is an option that I considered myself this evening… watching those people die,’ said Makoi. ‘Cho-zen Li wishes me dead, and I have often thought that if I were to give him what he wants, perhaps it is the only way to get close enough to kill him. But even then I would need to get past his bodyguard, and killing comes far too easily to her.’

  ‘Who is she? She’s not Chinese,’ noted Quaint.

  ‘One of my men was formerly part of Cho-zen Li’s army and he told me her tale. Apparently, the slavers’ ship picked her up ten or so years ago. She was not much more than a child then. She was clad only in animal skins, and her only possession was a blood-soaked knife. She was little more than an animal herself, and by the time the slavers reached China’s shores, six of them were dead. Cho-zen Li was forced to lock her up in his jail, but that only made things worse. Seeing her skills would be an asset, Cho-zen Li took her under his wing; he trained her, knowingly feeding her blood-lust. As things stand, your young female companion is lucky to be alive.’

  ‘Yes, but alive for how long? How can I get Ruby out of there?’

  ‘You cannot,’ said Makoi, resolutely. ‘Cho-zen Li’s mine is a dead end. You are permitted to live only until you are too weak to work. When you are of no more use to him, he has you executed as if you are just vermin to him.’

  Quaint turned to look at Makoi, trying to see the man through the mask. ‘You’re an interesting chap, my friend. You fight with all your heart and soul, and your men follow you without question. I sensed how committed you were when we first met, but I had no idea the lengths you were prepared to go to. You know, you could have confided in me this morning. You knew my feelings about Cho-zen Li, you knew what I came here to do.’